Sometimes You Do Get to Be the Princess
by Hermione-G-Weasley
Summary: Sometimes what you wait on isn't what is right. Part one of a short two-parter little story about Hermione's seventh year.


Disclaimer: All of these characters belong to JK Rowling. If they belonged to me, I'd... Well, I'd be a lot of things that I'm not.  
  
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I waited seven years to fall in love with Harry Potter.  
  
It was supposed to happen, and all I could do was wait. Perhaps that sounds a bit strange; okay, it probably sounds completely strange. You're probably wondering why in the world I was waiting to fall in love with someone. You're probably thinking that falling in love simply happens; when it's the right time, it's supposed to hit you like a ton of bricks.  
  
Well, that's what I was waiting on- the ton of bricks to drop onto my head and knock the beautiful little revelation into me.  
  
And, oh, what a joyous day that would be!  
  
I'd wake up one morning, know that this was finally the day, march straight up to Harry, and fall carelessly into his loving and warm embrace. Then all would be right with the, and we could live happily ever after.  
  
Happily ever after...  
  
Now, there's a beautiful thought. It's what every little girl dreams of when she's young; it is the only proper way to end up.  
  
It is, in all respects, the perfect outcome to a fairy tale life.  
  
Now, you may also laugh at that. Most people would find it humorous that I, Hermione Granger, would care about something as seemingly silly as a happily ever after. I'm the smart one, the serious one- definitely not the giggly, girly one.  
  
But, contrary to what many people seem to believe, I really am actually a girl. I've got all the necessary parts; I just don't choose to show them off with tight, revealing clothes like so many others do. And just like I have all the outside parts, I have all the inside parts, too. Yes, that means all those girly little hormones that do such fabulous jobs of turning so many members of the female sex into simpering little idiots.  
  
I just happen to be quite skilled at keeping them in check.  
  
But they're there. When I was younger, I used to sit on my mum's lap while she read me fairy tales, just like all little girls do. Not that I was ever a girly-girl, but my reactions to the stories were normal. I laughed when an animal danced, I sighed when the hero saved the princess, and I grew frightened when the witch tried to eat the children.  
  
Ha. I should have known I would end up as the witch and not the princess.  
  
Princesses were stunning with beautiful smooth hair and perfect smiles. They were never very smart, but they were always popular and well-loved. Take each of those things, find their opposites, and that would be me.  
  
Definitely not a princess.  
  
So, why, then, did I wait endlessly to fall in love with the hero? Why did I wait seven years to fall for Harry? Why was I so sure it would happen?  
  
Because Harry wasn't your typical hero.  
  
He definitely wasn't like any of the fairy tale heroes. Those men weren't short and scrawny with glasses that fell down their noses. They didn't hide from the limelight, they basked in it. They lived for being the center of attention. Their hair was never messy and black, and their eyes weren't shockingly green. The heroes always had soft golden hair and pale blue eyes.  
  
In all honesty, the fairy tale hero seemed a lot more like Draco Malfoy than like Harry Potter.  
  
But none of that changed the fact that Harry was, indeed, the hero. He was the Boy-Who-Lived, and as such, it was his sole responsibility to get the girl.  
  
The "girl" just happened to be me.  
  
We both knew that the entire population of Hogwarts expected us to end up together, married, successful, and raising 2.5 children who just happened to be the bravest, smartest young witches and wizards the world had ever seen.  
  
What could make life more perfect?  
  
Maybe it the waiting wasn't driving me completely and utterly mad! It was getting to Harry, too; I could tell. He had been waiting just as long to fall in love with me. He'd even taken to getting all guilty if he ever started liking another girl, glancing at me nervously as if to ask it was okay for him to have a crush. On the same page, I never even allowed myself to think about other guys. If I was preoccupied with something as trivial as a schoolgirl crush, I might have missed the moment I'd been waiting on. I might have missed my Destiny.  
  
And Destiny, my friend, is a big thing to miss.  
  
So, we both kept on waiting. It would happen eventually; it was Fate, and Fate wasn't something to be reckoned with.  
  
But damn it if I wasn't about to lose my bloody mind!  
  
So, realizing that time was running out, I decided to reckon with Fate after all and take matters into my own hands.  
  
That's why, two months before the end of our seventh year, I grabbed Harry's hand as he headed off of the Quidditch Pitch after a late-afternoon practice. As the rest of the team went on to the locker rooms, I yanked Harry into an opening under the stands.  
  
Obviously caught completely off-hand, Harry looked at me with widened and somewhat unsure eyes. "Hermione, are you okay?"  
  
Was I okay? No, I wasn't okay. I was sick to death of nothing transpiring. If something was going to happen, it was going to happen right then and there.  
  
Standing directly in front of him, I looked very pointedly at him and gave one simple demand. "Kiss me."  
  
To say that Harry looked surprised was quite the understatement. "Er, Hermione..."  
  
I was growing more impatient by the second, and with an exasperated roll of the eyes, I said, "Just do it. Get it over with. Harry, just kiss me."  
  
A look of realization covered Harry's face, and it was clear that he understood I was trying to make some sort of progress on the huge, life- changing event that we'd spent seven years looking for.  
  
However, he still looked a little uncertain. "Are you sure?" It was as if he were asking me if I was sure that I wanted to change my life completely.  
  
Well, Fate was Fate. So, yes.  
  
"Yes," I said shortly. "Now, do it."  
  
He glanced nervously around to make sure that no one was within seeing distance. He was blushing, something that Famous Harry Potter rarely did- or at least something he hadn't done since a certain raven-haired Ravenclaw Seeker had kissed him on the cheek on her last day of school the year before.  
  
"Um," he seemed at a loss for words, and I was thisclose to giving up and just holding him down and sticking my tongue into his mouth if he didn't hurry up. "Should I... hold your hand or something? Or maybe your neck..."  
  
I sighed. This was already too complicated. But maybe he was right; maybe it wouldn't work if it was just wham, bam, thank you, ma'am. But I didn't really think it had to be as formal as all that. "Just give me a compliment and then do it."  
  
Harry swallowed and nodded. "Right. Er, your... necklace is very nice."  
  
My necklace? The same locket my grandma had given me on my seventh birthday? The same locket I'd been wearing since the day he met me? My necklace?! You would think that since we were about to embark on something that would undoubtedly change both of our lives and make us into eventual passionate lovers that he could have complimented my eyes or at least my nose or something! But I was willing to take whatever I could get...  
  
"Thank you." I raised my eyebrows as if to tell him that was his cue; it would ruin the mood if I had to keep walking him through it verbally.  
  
And then he did it. He did end up putting his hands on the back of my neck, and he pulled me to him slowly. I was suddenly about to get second thoughts (mostly from the fact that I didn't think I could stomach the smell of his still unshowered body fresh from Quidditch practice at such close proximity). But just as I was about to lean away, he went ahead and did it.  
  
He kissed me.  
  
I was just the tiniest bit shocked that he'd actually gotten up the nerve to do it. But as soon as I finished with my surprise, I looked at him; our lips were still connected, but I could see into his eyes perfectly. Realizing that this wasn't the way a kiss was supposed to go, I quickly closed them and tried my best to relax into it.  
  
Moments later, when we did pull away, I opened them again and looked up at Harry, who had taken the liberty of taking a few steps backwards so that we weren't so close to each other anymore. My nose was eternally grateful.  
  
For a long time, neither of us spoke; we simply stared at each other in a very confused way. Finally, Harry gathered up some of that Gryffindor courage and spoke.  
  
"So, is that it then?"  
  
I frowned. That couldn't just be it; Fate was never wrong. Shaking my head out of disbelief, I looked at him. "Why didn't it work?"  
  
Harry looked as if he didn't know what to say. So, he said just that. "I don't know what to say..."  
  
Where were the fireworks? The thousands of wonderful sparks? Why wasn't my heart pounding? Why wasn't my blood thumping?  
  
This wasn't right.  
  
"Harry, this can't be right."  
  
"I don't know, Hermione," he said quietly. "Maybe it's not supposed to be us."  
  
Not supposed to be us? Not really knowing why, I let out a high-pitched, shrill little laugh that definitely did not sound at all like me. I realized that it was the laugh of stunned disbelief. Harry looked at me like I was crazy but waited patiently until I got myself calmed enough to speak again.  
  
"So, you didn't feel anything? No emotion at all?"  
  
Harry thought for a moment. "Awkward. I felt awkward- is that an emotion?"  
  
"Awkwardness is," I said unthinkingly. "Awkward is an adjective."  
  
Why I was giving him grammar lessons at a time like this, I had no idea. Harry just took another deep breath and nodded again. "Right."  
  
Shaking myself of the momentary lapse in logic, I looked up at him once again. "So, now what are we supposed to do? We've spent seven years waiting for this, and there's nothing!" I was closing in quickly on what could be considered hysteria.  
  
Harry was always one to keep a cool head, though, and he looked at me thoughtfully for a second. "I guess we just stay friends. And that's it."  
  
Friends? The Boy-Who-Was-Supposed-To-Be-My-Husband wanted to be friends?! But we were good at being friends; we had seven years of practice already. And maybe the next seven would be even better if we both weren't waiting on a grand revelation to happen.  
  
Not having any other choice, I nodded a little, my face still showing my disappointment. "I guess so," I said quietly.  
  
There was another long moment of silence until Harry finally stuck his right hand out to me. "Friends?"  
  
I regarded him for a second before finally giving in and taking his hand. "Friends," I mumbled as we shook hands.  
  
Afterwards, Harry flashed me a half-smile and disappeared off to the showers. And I was left alone.  
  
Alone.  
  
Seventeen and alone. Everyone I knew had had at least one boyfriend or girlfriend except for me- well, and Harry. They'd all been kissed, too, and now so had I. Only the thing that stood out most in my mind about that kiss was the rather potent stench of boy sweat.  
  
Oh, yes. My life was a fairy tale.  
  
In that one kiss, all my dreams of ever being a princess went flying away. I was Destined to be the witch.  
  
I hated Destiny.  
  
With nothing else to do, I decided to go drown my sorrows in a good book. However, mostly every good book that was ever written had some hero rescuing his princess...  
  
Maybe I would just go read Hogwarts, A History.  
  
The trip back to Gryffindor Tower was slow and tedious. I didn't bother trying to get there in any hurry; in fact, I took as long as humanly possible to cross the distance from the Quidditch field to the castle and then an even longer time up the flights of stairs and down the winding corridors. Finally, though, I reached the entrance, and the Fat Lady looked at me.  
  
"Password?" she said in her long, drawling voice.  
  
For the first time, I realized how idiotic it was to have this stupid password. The Fat Lady had seen me for seven bloody years! She knew fully- well who I was!  
  
"Snickerdoodle," I mumbled, not in the mood to try and make my case.  
  
With a slight bow, the painting swung open, and I climbed into the Common Room, melancholy settling in all over.  
  
The Gryffindor Common Room was uncharacteristically busy for such a beautiful day. A group of six First Years were seated on the floor in front of the fireplace playing Exploding Snap. Dennis Creevey and some of the other Fourth Years were studying for an upcoming Potions exam. There were several people just sitting around in small groups chatting, and as I passed the group where my fellow Seventh Years were laughing and joking, Lavender Brown looked up and smiled at me. "Come sit, Hermione."  
  
I shook my head in way of an explanation and continued toward the dormitory stairs. At the very last table before the stairs, I stopped short, though.  
  
Ron Weasley, my other best friend, was sitting amid a pile of textbooks and parchment, scribbling furiously away with a quill and completely oblivious to the rest of the Gryffindors.  
  
Apparently, he felt me staring, though, because he looked up and flashed me a lopsided grin. "Proud, Hermione?" he asked teasingly. "Head start on the N.E.W.T.s."  
  
I was rendered momentarily speechless.  
  
I almost fell to the ground as the ton of bricks finally came clambering down onto my head.  
  
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I wrote this in class yesterday out of extreme boredom. There's one more part to it and that's it. If you like it, let me know! If you hate it, let me know, too!  
  
Oh! And everyone please go to the-leaky-cauldron.org and donate some money to help with the Sotheby auction program. For anyone who doesn't know, they're trying to get up enough money to buy the Book Five Clue Card that JK wrote. Even if they don't win, though, the money is for a great cause- Book Aid. Donate whatever you can! It's worth it! 


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